While knife crime has dominated the headlines in 2018, police have also been hard at work trying to get paedophiles off the streets.

In west London alone there have been some truly disturbing cases in the courts so far this year.

They include a former Catholic priest with a sexual interest in babies, a sports coach who targeted pupils at a school and a man who tried to lure young girls into sex with the promise of drugs and shopping trips.

One of the criminals below went to the Court of Appeal to try to get his ten year sentence reduced - telling judges he had been well aware of the victim's age from an early stage, but told her it didn't matter and "said that she was his girlfriend".

Scroll down for more details from our reports about some of the most shocking cases of 2018 so far - thankfully all of these offenders are now behind bars:

Ajaz Karim

Ajaz Karim, 63, of Baron's Court Road, was sentenced for preying on six girls aged between 14 and 18 during his time teaching at Christ's Hospital School near Horsham, Sussex (Image: Sussex Police)

A former public school sports coach from Hammersmith will spend the next 10 years behind bars after he was found guilty of a series of sexual offences against young students.

Ajaz Karim, 63, of Baron's Court Road, was sentenced for preying on six girls aged between 14 and 18 during his time teaching at Christ's Hospital School near Horsham, Sussex.

He appeared at Hove Crown Court on Thursday (August 9) where he faced nine counts of indecent assault and one of attempted indecent assault against the young girls between 1985 and 1993.

According to Sussex Police, Karim who took advantage of the young students, masqueraded his sexual advances as sports massages.

Following his conviction, he will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life and was given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) to last until further court notice - severely restricting his access to youngsters.

Karim was arrested in June 2016 after Sussex Police officers received information relating to his predatory behaviour for the first time.

He was then remanded in custody until his sentencing following a two-week trial in April this year.

Regnoricus Shanmugam

Regnoricus Shanmugam had not only downloaded the images but was distributing them via instant mesaging apps (Image: Metropolitan Police)

A paedophile from Southall who made and distributed more than 60,000 indecent images of children has been jailed.

Even while on bail, having admitted to police that he downloaded and kept the indecent images, he continued to use the internet to find child pornography.

Regnoricus Shanmugam was first arrested by police who were acting on intelligence that an unknown suspect was using the internet at an address in Chaucer Avenue, Hayes , to download indecent images of children, Metropolitan Police said.

Shanmugam was at the address when police arrived on December 20, 2016, and confessed that he had been downloading the illegal pictures while being interviewed at a south London police station.

The Trinity Road, Southall, resident was released on bail and ordered to come back in October 2017. While on bail he was not allowed to have any unsupervised contact with anyone below the age of 18. He also had to report to a police station once a week.

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The 28-year-old's bail was extended to March 2018 but Metropolitan Police became aware of new evidence that he has been distributing indecent images of children.

Three devices with memory cards were recovered by police in a swoop on January 12, which proved that he had been downloading indecent images since having first been arrested in October 2016.

Shanmugam was charged that day with three counts of distributing indecent images of children and three counts of making indecent photographs of a child.

He was remanded into custody the following day at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court before appearing at Isleworth Crown Court on June 11, where he pleaded guilty to all counts. He was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday (July 2).

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At the time he was known as Father Edmund Higgins and was a priest at St Elizabeth's Church in Richmond.

When the National Crime Agency raided his address in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in January this year, they found a laptop with 201 child sexual abuse images that fell into the most severe category, Category A.

There were also 176 Category B, 461 category C and 10 prohibited images.

While out on bail, Black decided to return to using the online conference rooms and continued to offend.

He was charged with two counts of intentionally encouraging or assisting the distribution of indecent images of children, and one count of making indecent images of children.

After pleading guilty to both charges, Black was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court on Monday (June 25) to 31 months in prison.

Mohamed Mohamoud

An Uxbridge man is behind bars after urging underage girls on Facebook to meet him for sex - in return for drugs and shopping trips.

Mohamed Mohamoud, 31, convinced three young teenagers to give him their phone numbers, before trying to lure them into meeting him by promising them drugs, alcohol and to take them out shopping.

He was jailed for eight years at Isleworth Crown Court on Thursday (May 3) for two counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and one count of attempting to incite a child to commit sexual activity.

Mohamoud - who showed "no remorse" for his actions - found his three separate victims, aged 14 and 15 at the time, through Facebook in 2015 and 2016.